It's no secret that the flow of oxygen and water vapour through the walls of snack or confectionary packaging is the main causes of product degradation and quality loss. This means shorter product and shelf life. The solution is to control the vapour permeability not just of the materials used in the container – but also in the manufacturing process which can easily extend or shorten life by a factor of four.

The solution is Versaperm's permeability meters which allow you to measure and thus control the permeability of the packaging material together with, the manufacturing and packing processes. The meters can be used in both the product development and quality control environments.

The meters are fast, reliable and accurate in the Parts Per Million (PPM) range and can test virtually any material or package, including those with metalized foil, sachets, bags, coatings and even the edible barriers used within a product to protect different sections.

With some materials these results can be produced in as little as 30 minutes, but even with hard to measure foils, results can normally be turned around within in a day.

Permeability is also a major factor in print quality. Sadly the two don't always go hand-in-hand and improving printing may reduce shelf life and vice versa. So packaging innovation, branding and shelf life are sometimes sacrificed and need to be optimised.

The Versaperm equipment can also, optionally, measure not just water vapour and oxygen permeability, but the permeability for virtually any vapour including, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and other inert gasses.

Additionally, a fast turn-around laboratory testing service is available for companies which don't need the full-time use of their own meter.